Literacy glossary
The Science of Reading, term by term.
57 entries so far. Each definition is written for a teacher, a parent, or a district admin to read — and for an AI assistant to quote.
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Acadience Reading Benchmarks
Acadience Reading is a K-6 universal screener and progress-monitoring system that evolved from DIBELS Next. Subtests cover phonemic awareness, decoding, fluency, and comprehension by grade and season.
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Alphabetic Principle
The alphabetic principle is the insight that letters in written words systematically represent the sounds of spoken words. It's the cognitive breakthrough phonics instruction is built on.
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Balanced Literacy
Balanced literacy is an instructional approach that aimed to combine whole language with phonics. In practice it underemphasized systematic phonics and stagnated US reading scores for decades.
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Blending Sounds
Blending sounds — also called phoneme blending — is combining individual sounds into one spoken word: /m/ /a/ /n/ → man. It's the phonemic-awareness skill underneath all early decoding.
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Closed Syllables
A closed syllable ends in a consonant and has a short vowel sound. It is the most common of the six syllable types and the foundation every CVC word and multi-syllable decoder builds on.
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Consonant Blends
Consonant blends are two or three consonants that each keep their sound — br in brick, st in fast. The full list of L-, R-, and S-blends, blends vs. digraphs, and how to teach them.
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Consonant Digraphs
Consonant digraphs are pairs of letters that represent a single speech sound — sh, ch, th, ph, wh, ng, ck. Mastering them is the bridge from CVC decoding to fluent reading.
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Consonant-le Syllable
The consonant-le syllable is the sixth syllable type: a final consonant + -le taking the schwa-l sound, as in ta-ble, sim-ple, and lit-tle.
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CVC Words
CVC words follow the consonant-vowel-consonant pattern (cat, hop, sit). They're the first decodable words students read after learning short vowels and consonants — the entry point to text.
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CVCe Words
CVCe words follow a consonant-vowel-consonant-e pattern where the final silent e signals the preceding vowel to say its long sound — the first long-vowel pattern most readers learn.
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Decodable Books
Decodable books contain only the phonics patterns a student has already been taught — so they have to decode, not guess. The opposite of predictable leveled readers.
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Decoding
Decoding is the cognitive skill of translating printed letters into the sounds they represent and blending those sounds into recognizable words.
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DIBELS
DIBELS is a set of one-minute reading screeners given three times a year in K-6. What each subtest measures, how scores are interpreted, and how to track growth between benchmark windows.
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Diphthongs
A diphthong is a vowel sound that glides — /ow/ in cow, /oy/ in boy. Examples of all four spellings, how diphthongs differ from vowel teams, and where they fit in the phonics sequence.
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Dyslexia
Dyslexia is a neurobiological reading difference rooted in weak phonological processing — the most common learning disability, helped by structured literacy.
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Elkonin Boxes
Elkonin boxes (sound boxes) are a phonemic-awareness tool: students push one token into a box for each sound in a word — one box per phoneme, not per letter — then map letters to sounds.
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Encoding
Encoding is the act of translating spoken sounds into written letters — spelling, in plain English. It's the inverse of decoding and a powerful tool for cementing phonics knowledge.
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Final Stable Syllables
Final stable syllables are unaccented word endings — like -tion, -ture, -cious, and consonant-le — that pronounce consistently and make multi-syllable decoding predictable.
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Fry and Dolch Words
The Fry (1,000 words) and Dolch (220 words + 95 nouns) word lists catalog the most common words in English print. Knowing how (and how not) to teach them is central to early literacy.
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Guided Reading
Guided reading is small-group instruction with leveled texts, popularized by Fountas & Pinnell. Being phased out in US elementary classrooms as it conflicts with Science-of-Reading research.
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Hasbrouck-Tindal Norms
The Hasbrouck-Tindal table is what schools mean by ORF norms: WCPM fluency benchmarks by grade, percentile, and season for grades 1-6. The 2017 update is the current reference.
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Heart Words
Heart words are high-frequency words with an irregular part students learn 'by heart' while decoding the rest. Get the ~100-word list and a 5-minute teaching routine.
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Letter-Sound Correspondence
Letter-sound correspondence is the knowledge that specific letters and letter combinations represent specific speech sounds. It's the bridge from phonemic awareness to decoding.
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Morphology
Morphology is the study of meaningful word parts — roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Morphological awareness is one of the highest-leverage skills for reading and spelling above 2nd grade.
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Multi-Syllable Decoding
Multi-syllable decoding is the systematic strategy for reading words of two or more syllables — using syllable division, syllable types, and morphology to attack long words without guessing.
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Multi-Tiered System of Supports
MTSS means Multi-Tiered System of Supports; RTI means Response to Intervention. Same three-tier structure — MTSS is the broader one, covering behaviour and SEL alongside academics.
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Nonsense Words
Nonsense words like vop and mish test pure decoding — they can't be memorized. Example word lists, how DIBELS Nonsense Word Fluency is scored (CLS vs. WWR), and what results mean.
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Onset-Rime
Onset-rime is the phonological-awareness level between syllables and phonemes — splitting a syllable into the consonant(s) before the vowel and the vowel-plus-rest. The substrate for word families.
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Open Syllables
An open syllable ends in a single vowel, and that vowel says its long name — me, hi, go, pa-per, ti-ger. One of the six syllable types and a key to multi-syllable decoding.
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Orthographic Mapping
Orthographic mapping is the cognitive process by which readers turn unfamiliar printed words into instantly-recognized sight words by binding spelling, pronunciation, and meaning.
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Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words — the foundation that makes phonics learnable.
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Phonics
Phonics is the systematic, explicit teaching of how letters and letter combinations represent the sounds of spoken language.
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Phonological Awareness
Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate the sound structure of spoken language — from words and syllables down to onsets, rimes, and individual phonemes.
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Prefixes
A prefix attaches to the start of a root word and changes its meaning (un + happy). The 20 most common prefixes cover about 97% of prefixed words — full list with meanings and examples.
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Prosody
Prosody is the rhythm, phrasing, stress, and expression of oral reading — the dimension of fluency that signals whether a reader is processing meaning. Scored on a 4-point NAEP rubric.
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R-Controlled Vowels
R-controlled vowels are vowel + r combinations where the r changes the vowel sound — ar, or, er, ir, ur. They're one of the six syllable types and a common 1st-2nd grade phonics target.
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Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is the construction of meaning from text — the goal of all reading instruction. It depends on decoding, vocabulary, language comprehension, and active strategies.
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Reading Fluency
Reading fluency is the ability to read connected text accurately, at an appropriate rate, and with expression — the bridge between decoding and comprehension. It has three measurable dimensions.
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Reading Intervention
Reading intervention is the extra instruction a student gets when core reading isn't enough. How Tier 2 and Tier 3 differ on group size, frequency, session length, and who teaches them.
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Reading Recovery
Reading Recovery is a 1-on-1 first-grade reading intervention developed by Marie Clay. It's being phased out as its three-cueing and leveled-text practices conflict with the Science of Reading.
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Running Records
A running record codes a student's oral reading errors into MSV (Meaning/Syntax/Visual) categories. Being phased out as MSV conflicts with Science-of-Reading research.
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Scarborough's Rope
Scarborough's Rope weaves 8 strands into skilled reading — 3 word-recognition strands and 5 language-comprehension strands. What each strand means and how to use the model in class.
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Schwa
The schwa is English's most common vowel sound — an unstressed 'uh' that appears in nearly every multi-syllable word. Understanding it unlocks both reading and spelling.
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Scope and Sequence
A scope and sequence is the ordered plan for what phonics patterns are taught and in what order. The reason two curricula teaching the same patterns can produce different reading outcomes.
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Segmenting and Blending
Blending combines sounds into a word; segmenting breaks a word into sounds. How the two phonemic-awareness skills differ, which one comes first, and how to teach each.
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Silent Letters
Silent letters are written letters that aren't pronounced — like the k in knee or the b in lamb. They cluster in predictable patterns and most can be taught explicitly.
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Simple View of Reading
The Simple View of Reading: Reading Comprehension equals Decoding multiplied by Language Comprehension. If either factor is zero, comprehension is zero.
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Soft c and Soft g
Soft c and soft g are the phonics patterns where c represents /s/ (city, cent) and g represents /j/ (gem, giant) — usually when followed by e, i, or y.
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Structured Literacy
Structured literacy is an evidence-based approach to teaching reading characterized by explicit, systematic, multisensory instruction in the components of reading.
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Suffixes
A suffix is a word part added to the end of a root (walk + ed = walked). The most common suffixes with examples, inflectional vs. derivational, and the three spelling rules students need.
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Syllable Types
The six syllable types — closed, open, vowel-consonant-e, vowel team, R-controlled, and consonant-le — are the decoding map that lets readers attack multi-syllable words confidently.
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Three-Cueing
Three-cueing is a reading strategy that prompts students to use meaning, syntax, and visual cues to identify words. Cognitive science has shown it interferes with skilled reading.
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Trigraphs
A trigraph is three letters that together represent a single speech sound. The most common English trigraphs are -tch, -dge, and -igh, each governed by specific position rules.
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Vocabulary
Vocabulary is the body of words a reader knows. In reading instruction, words are grouped into three tiers — and the tier matters more than the count when planning instruction.
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Vowel Teams
Vowel teams are two (or sometimes three) vowel letters that work together to represent one vowel sound. They're how English spells most long-vowel words after CVCe.
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Word Families
A word family is a group of words that share the same rime — the vowel and any consonants that follow it. Cat, bat, hat, and mat all share -at. Word families let early readers decode by analogy.
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Y as a Vowel
Y is a vowel whenever it isn't starting a syllable: long i ending short words (my, fly), long e ending longer ones (happy). Every y-as-a-vowel rule, with word lists.
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